Anna Barbauld’s
Civic Sermons to the People(Number I), written in the summer of 1792, responds directly to the
Royal Proclamation Against Seditious Writings and Publications, which was issued by England’s King George III on 21 May 1792. As with her other notable political pamphlets, namely
Sins of Government, Sins of the Nation(1793) and
An Address to the Opposers of the Repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts(1790), Barbauld entered the sphere of public discourse to register her discontent with the political climate, especially as manifested in royal decrees. Anna Barbauld, née Aikin (1743-1825), gained initial literary acclaim in 1773 for her first commercial publication,
Poems. By eighteenth-century standards, the collection was a runaway hit, going through four editions in the…
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Citation: Krawczyk, Scott. "Civic Sermons to the People". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 07 November 2015 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=5957, accessed 25 November 2024.]